ElI5: How does anything in space not just get destroyed by high speed objects accelerating through space? How can we have space stations that are not blasted with huge holes from impacts?

Question

ElI5: How does anything in space not just get destroyed by high speed objects accelerating through space? How can we have space stations that are not blasted with huge holes from impacts?

In: Engineering

Answer 1

You know those really tense scenes in sci-fi movies where the heroes have to bravely maneuver their ship through the asteroid field?

Yeaaaaaaaaah. Sorry, but nope: Real-life asteroid fields have *thousands and thousands of miles* between each asteroid. They’re only an asteroid field because they only have thousands of miles between objects, as opposed to the rest of space that has *millions* or even *billions of miles* between objects.

You cannot imagine just how empty space is.